Early Stone Age
Why did the ancients make gigantic handaxes?
Looking at new research on the distribution and function of curiously large bifacial tools
Four amazing Stone Age sites with wooden artifacts
From Africa, Asia, and Europe, these sites give us a rare window into the ways that organic technology shaped ancestral lives.
Guide to Paranthropus species
Long known as a group of human relatives with big teeth and jaws, these ancient species lived for at least two million years alongside our ancestors.
All the hominins made tools
A study of associations between stone tool evidence and fossil hominin remains shows that a wide range of species made stone artifacts.
Did Acheulean hominins have long-distance obsidian trade?
I review several papers looking into the occurrence of obsidian artifacts in the Acheulean of eastern Ethiopia.
The earliest stone toolmakers had some technological sophistication
Several studies consider the stone flaking decisions necessary for Oldowan tool manufacture.